Six Months

Yeah...it has been a while since I last posted.  Sorry.  Here is what I have been up to though!

A few days ago, I hit six months working for the railroad.  For the last few years, I have been in seasonal work, so this is the longest consecutive time I have worked at the same place for a while now.  In that time, here are a few things that I have been involved in:

• Traveled 10,291.8 miles by rail
• Moved about 610,000 tons of freight
• Spent approximately 950 hours on trains
• Traveled on 105 different trains
• Handled approximately 12,375 rail cars
• Switched 1 passenger train
• Picked up about 185 cars from customers
• Dropped off about 180 cars to customers
• Dealt with mechanical problems on 3 occasions
• Fixed 1 broken knuckle
• Rode out 1 derailment

I could not even make a slightly educated guess as to how many switches I have lined or track warrants I have copied.  Both those activities happen numerous times every time I go to work.

I know I have only been working for the railroad for six months, which really is not very long.  While the above statistics seem like a lot, I still feel very new, and I am still learning how everything works.  There is a lot more to know than they could possibly cover during the training period, and I continue to learn more every time I go to work.

On the Job Training

For the last three weeks, I have been doing on the job training.  I started out working on the freight trains between Glendive and Forsyth, about 125 miles west of here.  That went well.  The schedule was a little crazy, but I guess I had better get used to that!  I was mostly on either empty or loaded coal trains, depending on the direction I was going.  I was on a few other freight trains too though.  Empty coal trains are some of the lightest trains we have go through here regularly, and loaded coal trains are among the heaviest.  I was on several loaded ones that weighed over 17,000 tons!

Adter spending most of the first week on the road, I was given a different assignment.  I was moved to the yard, as a Utility employee.  The utility is responsible for moving locomotives around.  Glendive has a roundhouse and a service area, so a lot of locomotives come off trains when they get here to be fueled, serviced, or repaired, if needed.  Generally we fuel locomotives if they have less than 1,500 gallons in their tanks.  Most hold around 5,000 gallons of diesel.  Sometimes locomotives also need to have repairs made.  In that case, we would also pull them off the train and bring them over to the roundhouse.  Before trains go out again, they need to have locomotives added, and the utility crew was also responsible for that.  The roundhouse has four tracks, called ready tracks, where they would park locomotives that were ready to go out on trains.  We would go over there and pick up locomotives and then run around the yard and put them on the trains they were assigned to.  If that was all done, then the crew taking the train did not have to worry about getting their engines before they left.  They could get in the train and head out of town right away.  That saves them a lot of time.  Besides that, utility crew handles a lot of the other odd jobs around the yard area.  Sometimes it is as simple as throwing switches for a train that is coming in.  Other times it is walking the length of a train to conduct an air test and inspection.  Walking trains always takes a while.  Most of the trains are over a mile long, and the air test requires an inspection of both sides, so you walk the length of it twice.  The first train I had to walk was over 7,000 feet long, because it did not fit in the yard track it was on.

I spent about a week working in the yard, on utility, and then I was supposed to go on the helper locomotives.  When our coal trains head east from here, they get a helper locomotives.  Some other trains also get a helper, but the coal trains always get one.  They go up Beaver Hill, into North Dakota.  The helpers push form the rear, and basically just give them some extra horsepower over the hill.  Once they are at the top of the hill, the train stops, they uncouple the helper locomotive, and the train continues east, while the helper locomotive returns to Glendive.  There was a mix up with that though, and I ended up being put back on the road to Forsyth.  I did not get to do the helpers this time around.  I spent all of this week running back and forth between Glendive and Forsyth again.  This week was a little crazy though.  At the beginning of the week, there was a derailment in Idaho, on a different line.  That meant that a lot of trains were detoured over this line, while they cleaned up the mess on the other one.  Things were busier than normal, which also meant everything went a bit slower than normal.  Later in the week, there was a minor derailment in Dickinson, ND, which is on this line.  Because of that, nothing could get through, and so everything was quiet for a day and a half while they sorted that out.  Those two derailments really made things crazy around here, even if they were not here.

Next week, we go back to the classroom.  We will be in the classroom for the next three weeks.  In two weeks, we have our first test.  It is called the Hostlers Exam.  It is a basic exam, going over basic operations, air tests, safety rules, and operation rules.  We have two opportunities to pass that, with a 90% or more.  If we do not pass it, we continue with training and take it again at the end, with the rest of our exams.  If we do pass it, we are licensed as a Hostler.  That allows us to operate engines without any cars and perform conductor and brakeman duties around the yard.  In three weeks, we take a practice exam.  The practice exam does not effect our training or our job, but it gives the training people an idea of how we are doing for the real thing, which will be six weeks later.  Ideally, most of us will get a passing grade on it.  We will be studying a lot more rules over the next few weeks, and in three weeks, we are doing more on the job training.

So that is my life.  I have no schedule anymore.  Sometimes I go to work at 11:30pm and work until lunch time.  Other days I go to work just after breakfast and work until dinner time.  Basically, if I am not at work, I spend most of my time sleeping, so I will be rested enough when the phone rings to go to work again.  The classroom will be on a more regular schedule for the next few weeks.

Well, that is all I have to say!

Switching

This post comes at you from eastern Montana!

Last Saturday, I made the LONG drive from Utah County to Glendive, MT.  It took 13 hours, and I covered 927 miles.  Along the way I made exactly three fuel/rest stops, in Idaho Falls, ID, Bozeman, MT, and Miles City, MT.  It was a very long drive, although shortened a bit by the ability to drive at relatively high speeds for most of it.  It started out in the snow, but that only lasted as far as Ogden, UT, which was fortunate.  I really did not want to drive in the snow if I did not have to.

On Sunday, I managed to find the ward here, the Glendive Ward, and get to church.  The church is located right next to the railroad tracks, so it is actually a pretty noisy place at times.  At least it does not shake whenever a train goes by!  The ward is well attended, but it also covers a huge area!

On Monday morning, I began my first day at work with the BNSF Railway.  Several of us met in a conference room on the second floor of the Glendive station building.  The class was supposed to have eight students, however one did not show up, which is a bit odd, because apparently he called our instructor and talked about coming, and he formally accepted the job last week.  But when Monday came around, he was missing in action.  Since then he has not called or emailed or made any contact.  At this point he has lost the job even if he does turn up somewhere.  We have covered so much stuff that catching up would be difficult.  We began class as normal, despite the absentee.  Monday was a lot of very general safety information.  We started reviewing the rule book, which is the size of a toddler, and going over safe practices around trains.  We learned about the "Eight Deadly."  They are eight things that pretty much guarantee a very serious injury or death of you do them.  We reviewed a lot of rules, and watched some short safety videos.  Most of the stuff we covered on Monday was pretty obvious, and it makes you wonder how stupid someone was to get such a rule in the book!

On Tuesday, the coldest day all week, we decided to go outside.  It warmed all the way up to -2.  We learned some basic operations such as setting hand brakes on cars and coupling air hoses for the brake system.  We also learned how to disassemble the couplers and replace the knuckles if they break.  We were probably only outside about an hour, but it doesn't take long to want to somewhere warm when it is that cold!  The rest of the day was spent indoors, with more rulebook stuff.  Wednesday was even more rule book stuff.

Photo from www.trainpix.com

On Thursday things worked out such that we could go outside and actually use a train.  Not only that, it was the warmest day all week!  The switch engine had a crew, and they had an hour to work with us in between their regular duties, so we all got to work around a moving train.  There were three freight cars we found laying around, which were not being used, so we decided to practice coupling the engines to them.  Of course, being conductor trainees, we were not be operating the locomotives, but rather spotting for the engineer.  We took turns using hand signals to instruct the engineer to pull away from the cars left on the siding, and then we would guide him back to make a joint, or coupling.  Once the coupling was made, we would give him a signal to indicate that we would be stepping between the locomotive and car to couple the air hoses.  Once that was done, it was the next person's turn to start the process over again.  We were also instructed to go to the cab of the locomotive, so we could see the hand signals from the engineer's perspective.  We had a pair of locomotives, and so the engineer was sitting well over 100 feet away from the coupling, in the far locomotive.  He was also facing away from the coupling, meaning  he was watching these hand signals in a small mirror outside his side window.  We felt like we were giving huge signals, but from the cab, they did not look quite so huge!  We all got to ride back and forth a couple times to get an idea of what he sees and how he reacts up at the head end during such an operation.  After about an hour, we all had a chance to do that, and so we headed back inside.  The locomotives and cars we were using wandered off with the switch crew, and we picked up where we had left off with rules and practices.

Today was a very short day, but it did involve more rules.  We spent a couple hours studying the rules for conducting different types of air brake tests on the trains.  Those rules and exceptions and really complex.  Not only do we have to know when to conduct such tests, we have to know how.  Typically it is the conductor who takes charge of such tests.  On Monday we have to be back at work, and we will be putting ourselves on a call board for trains.  Starting next week, we will be doing on the job training.  We will mark up with a crew and ride the trains with them to get an idea of what operations are like outside of the classroom.  We will have three weeks of on the job training before we return to the classroom again.  This job is a lot of fun, but I think it will be better in warm weather!

That locomotive above is one of the pair we were using yesterday.  I did not take the picture, but it is the actual locomotive that someone else spotted out there.

Well I Promised You Updates...

As all of you know, if you have been stalking my blog for more than a few weeks, I had a job interview for a Conductor position with BNSF Railway.  Let me update you on that situation.  As a reminder, the interview was at the beginning of December, and it was up in Forsyth, Montana.  They had positions open in both Forsyth, MT, and Glendive, MT.  During the interview process, I told them I would prefer to work in Glendive, if possible.  They basically told me to check my email for further updates.  I figured that would be the end of the process, but as it turned out, it was just the beginning.

About a week after the interview, I got an email from BNSF, in which they offered me a job in Glendive.  The job offer was conditional on me passing quite a few different background checks, in the United States and in Canada.  It was also conditional on passing drug and alcohol tests, as well as a physical and vision and hearing exams.  Shortly after receiving the job offer, I received several emails containing electronic copies of quite a lot of paperwork.  I spent a large part of that week gathering information and filling out paperwork, and forwarding it all back to the railroad.  After Christmas they contacted me a couple more times to get additional information for the background checks.  The paperwork was not complete until the middle of January.  At that point, I received an email from them indicating that the next openings were not until some time in April.  They did not give me an official start date, but they let me know when I would likely be starting, pending all the background checks going through.

Last Thursday, a week ago, I received another email from BNSF, again offering me the same job, in Glendive.  They let me know all the background check stuff had gone through and I was eligible to work for them.  I accepted the job offer.  I will start working on Monday, February 28, at 7:00am.  Yes, that is just a couple days from now.  I got about ten days notice.  So now the task at hand is to move myself to Glendive, MT, which is over 800 miles from here.  I am packing everything up, and Saturday morning I will stuff everything in the car and make the drive.  I estimate that it will take about twelve hours to drive up there, so I plan to leave early in the morning.  Once there I have to find a place to stay and get settled.  Work is six days a week typically.  Monday will mark the beginning of the training period, which will last 15 weeks.  Following that, I have to take some exams issued by the Federal Railroad Administration, a division of the Department of Transportation.  Upon passing those I will be a certified Conductor for BNSF Railway.

Can you believe that they are going to pay me to ride trains?!

Double Clutch Madness

A few of you blog stalkers have asked about work from time to time.  As most of you know, I drive charter buses in Provo, which takes me to a variety of destinations throughout the western United States.  The thing that always gets questions is when I mention that some of our older buses have manual transmissions.  Needless to say, driving a manual bus is quite different from a car with a manual transmission!

As many of you know, when you drive a car with a manual transmission, you give it a little gas, put it in first, and then let the clutch out to get the car going.  As you accelerate, you shift gears by putting the clutch in, moving the shifter the the appropriate gear, and then letting the clutch out.  It is all very simple.  To explain the exact mechanics behind all this would take a long time, and be pretty boring reading without pictures.  If you want all the details, go to www.howstuffworks.com and look it up!  (They have pictures!)  The reason it works that easily in a car is because of devices on every gear called synchronizers.  For the gears to be able to engage, the wheels and internal parts on the transmission must be spinning the same speed.  When you change gears, going up, your engine, and there fore transmission, are turning fast.  When you push the clutch in to change gears, the engine slows down, but it is no longer connected to the transmission, so the internal parts of the transmission could continue spinning at about the same speed, until they eventually slow down on their own.  However, as you stick it in the next gear, the synchronizers slow it down faster, to match the speed of the wheels for the new gear, allowing the gears to line up perfectly.  Then you engage the clutch again, and you are off, in a higher gear.  Everything I just explained is true in a car, but only kind of true in a bus.

Buses have double clutch transmissions.  This means, if you want to get going, it is almost the same.  While you are stopped, you push the clutch, and then move the shifter towards first.  However, it will not go into gear.  There are no synchronizers to help line everything up.  Since your engine was turning, the internal parts of the transmission are still turning, until they eventually slow down.  They wheels however are not moving, and without the synchronizers, you just  have to wait until the transmission parts slow to a stop.  Until then, it will not go into gear.  But it will make an awful grinding noise while you try to force it!  So after a few seconds, you get it into gear.  Just like in a car, you let the clutch out slowly and you begin to roll, but then it is time to change gears so you can go faster.  This is where things get a little tricky.  You push the clutch pedal, and pull it out of first gear.  The engine is revved really high, but it has to slow down to get into the next gear.  Consequently, the transmission parts are also revved really high, but need to slow down to get into the next gear, but the synchronizers don't exist to help.  So, once out of gear and in neutral, you let the gas off, and you let the clutch out for just a second.  This slows the transmission down quickly.  Then you push the clutch in again and stick it into gear.  If you did it right, it goes smoothly into the next gear.  If not, it grinds, shakes, lurches, and basically tells you and everyone on board that you did it wrong!  This pattern of clutch-shift out of gear-unclutch-clutch-shift into gear-unclutch should last maybe a second, which means you are moving fast.  But you have to be gentle, then at least if you do goof it up there will be quieter grinding, less violent shaking, and and minimal lurching.

Down shifting is where things get really tricky.  This is partly because there are three pedals on the floor, and you only have two feet, but you really need to be using all three.  Since you cannot possibly hit all three pedals just the way you need to at one time, you sort of end up doing a crazy hectic down shifting dance in your seat.  As you get to the speed where you need to down shift, you push in the clutch, and pull the shifter out of gear, as usual, and then let the clutch back in.  Before you can put it in the lower gear however, everything needs to get going faster, so you rev the engine as fast as it will go.  Once it is revved, you step on the clutch and put it in the lower gear, then release the clutch.  However, while you are stepping on the gas to rev the engine, you cannot be stepping on the brake to slow down, so hopefully you planned a bit of extra space for this!  Once again, if it was done right, and at the proper speed, it is nice and smooth.  If not, a few things could happen.  If you did it while going too slow, and somehow managed to get into gear anyway, when you let the clutch out, the bus suddenly surges forward.  If you were still going too fast, and somehow managed to get it into gear, then it suddenly grabs you and slows you down in a hurry when you let the clutch out.  Usually though, it just doesn't go into gear.  And then you sit there wondering what to do next because you have slowed down enough that going back to the gear you started in an option.  You have to find a gear somewhere.  So then you start looking for a gear, but they all grind and shake and nothing seems to be working.  Then you wish you had planned that down shift a bit better, but it is too late to think about that.  Then, as you are drifting along in no gear, traffic begins to move again, so you have to find a gear to get going.  It is either that or coast to a stop in the middle of a busy road!

Why is it this way?  Well it all boils down to those little metal pieces called synchronizers.  In a car, they make everything go the right speed so you never have to think about it.  Buses, and trucks for that matter, simply don't have them.  They would have to be so big to be effective that they are not practical, which means the driver is responsible for synchronizing everything.  It is a pretty tricky operation when you thing about it.  You are trying to get a few little teeth 40 feet away to line up just right, which you cannot see at all.  Not only that, they are spinning anywhere from 500 to 2500 rotations every minute!

Now, I am sure you are wondering what exactly happens when you do mess it up, besides the grinding, shaking, and lurching.  There are a few ways to fix it.  When you are shifting up, if you miss the gear, you can try again, but if you cannot get it into gear within a few seconds, chances are you will not get it in after that.  You will lose too much speed.  So, if you miss the gear you try again, once, and then you let the clutch back out, rev the engine, and then go back to the gear you started in.  You stay there until you are back up to shifting speed, and try again.  Some gears are more stubborn than others, and sometimes, even though you nail the speed, it still takes a few tries.  If it just will not go, one thing you can do is get off the clutch, and then rev the engine just a little.  Then step off the gas, put the clutch in, and quickly stick it into gear.  Usually doing that will help it find the gear, but it has to be done very quickly to work.  When down shifting, if you mess it up and cannot get it into gear, the first thing you check is your speed.  If you are going too fast, your best bet is put it back into the gear you were in and slow down some more.  If you are going too slow, you need to step off the gas as you step on the clutch, because the engine will not need to be going as fast.  That will allow it to find the gear.  It will still make noise, but it will find it.  When all else fails, you simply slow down to a crawl until you can stick it back in first and start over.  Sure everyone in their cars behind you hates you for it, but they aren't paying as much in taxes to use the road as the bus is, so they can just deal with it!

Some buses are more forgiving than others.  Some will let you goof it up a little, and they will no jerk you around as badly for it.  Others are not forgiving at all, and if you mess it up, they simply will not even let you have the gear!  Basically it is a lot of work and takes a lot of thinking ahead to do it.  If it is stop and go traffic, you will probably break a sweat.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that these clutches are so stiff that the only thing that keeps me from standing on them is my seatbelt.  Without that, it would take most of my weight to push that pedal down!  It is totally a chore, and it really makes you hate the person who darts out in front of you and then slows down.  But that is how it all works.  If that was not technical enough, do a little research online, and you will get it.  www.howstuffworks.com is a good one.

Coming at You at 80mph!

For the first time ever, I am writing a post from a moving train.  Gotta love technology!  According to the GPS on my iPhone, the train is moving at 80.2 mph, which sounds about right.  I am on Amtrak's California Zephyr, in eastern Iowa, heading west to Salt Lake City, UT.  The train is scheduled to arrive there tomorrow evening.

The holidays have been fun and exciting, as always.  I left Utah on Christmas Eve, just before midnight, and flew overnight to Kennedy Airport in New York.  I arrived there early in the morning on Christmas Day.  The weather was good, and I got out to my grandparents' house without a hitch.  Everything was pretty quiet since it was Christmas, but being New York, it was not entirely dead, the way most cities are.  Transit still ran every half hour, some stores and restaurants were open, and things generally moved, although slower than usual.

After Christmas, it began to snow.  Steven and Michael were scheduled to take the train from Boston to New York, and got on without any problems.  It was barely snowing when they started out, 250 miles away.  As they traveled, and as the day progressed, the snow continued to fall, and continued to fall harder.  Tim and I kept shoveling the driveway to stay ahead of the storm.  We were anticipating that we would have to go out to pick up Steven and Michael, when they arrived at the Mineola station.  We figured it would be easier to shovel a little snow several times, rather than a lot all at once.

Steven and Michael arrived in Penn Station, in New York, without any problems.  Their train had been delayed only about ten minutes by the weather.  They got ready to catch the Long Island Rail Road to Mineola as planned.  By this point, over a foot of snow had fallen.  By my standards, that is not a lot, but in New York, it is a ton!  Just as Steven and Michael went to catch their train, it was announced that all service on the Long Island Rail Road had been suspended due to the weather.  No trains would be running until further notice, and no one knew when further notice would be.

Fortunately, Steven and Michael are usually pretty resourceful.  The New York subways were still running, at least where they operate underground.  A neighborhood in Queens, called Jamaica, is the main hub for the railroad, and the subway operates underground out to there.  Steven and Michael hopped on a subway, in hopes that once in Jamaica they could catch one of the last operating Long Island Rail Road trains.  Unfortunately when they got to Jamaica, they found that the situation was the same.  They were less than ten miles from their destination, yet they couldn't get any trains there.  Next they began looking into taking the bus, which is slower, but not out of the question.  As they went looking for a bus, they found several stuck in the unplowed streets.  No plows had been around at all, and the buses were simply abandoned where they had gotten stuck.  It seemed that they were not going any farther soon.

Steven and Michael kept me posted on their progress, which was great until they got to the Big Apple.  There it simply stopped.  They elected to remain in Jamaica, since the station was warm and sheltered.  They found a piece of floor that looked comfortable and went to sleep.  There was nothing else to be done.  The next morning, we all awoke to another foot of snow on the ground.  Tim and I looked out the window in Garden City and found that the streets had been cleared.  Although a lot of snow had fallen, driving was not a problem.  Steven and Michael reported a different situation though.  In Queens, the snow was still all over the streets.  Buses were still stuck and nothing was running.  The Long Island Rail Road had made no announcements on an anticipated start time or date.  Everything was just silent as far as the railroad was concerned.  In Mineola, where Tim and I were, buses were running and things were getting going again.  There were delays, but things were starting to move.  Again, Steven and Michael reported the opposite.  They waited there most of the day, hoping for something, and seeing very little activity.  Eventually, i got a phone call from them, to let me know they had found a bus going to Mineola.  It was one of just two that were able to get through the still buried Queens streets.  I met them at the Mineola station, where the buses drop off.  It took them a record 27:30 to travel about 250 miles between Nashua, NH, and Garden City, NY!

The next day, the Long Island Rail Road announced that it was operating again, although on a very limited schedule.  A couple of lines would be running hourly trains to Manhattan.  We all went down to the station, because we were scheduled to take the train back to Boston, to go to Nashua for a few days.  We waited at the Mineola station for two hours.  When the train finally came, we could no longer feel our noses or ears or toes, but we were happy to be going somewhere.  People on the platform clapped and cheered as the train pulled in.  From there, things operated pretty smoothly.  There were minor delays here and there, but once we were on the train to New York, things ran pretty well.  The Amtrak trip went smoothly all the way to Boston.  Once in Boston, we took the train to Lowell, MA, where we were met by my mom.  She drove the bunch of us up to Nashua, and we spent the next couple days in that area.

Over the next few days we had some fun adventures.  We would have like to get up to Montreal, but time really did not allow for that.  We did go up to Vermont to visit the Joseph Smith birthplace.  That was quite nice, although rather cold and windy.  We also spent a day in Boston.  We saw the Old North Church, and Copps Hill Burial Ground, both of which predate the American Revolution.  Copps Hill Burial Ground was founded in 1659.  Two people buried there were actually born in the 1590's!  Some of the newer graves in there are from the early 1800's.  The Old North Church is near the Paul Revere Home.  Paul Revere made his midnight ride from Boston to Lexington and Concord, to warn the residents that the British were coming.  He went by horseback in the middle of the night.  At the same time as he was riding out to those towns, a signal was shown for a few minutes from the steeple of the Old North Church.  There would be one lantern if the British went by land, and two if they went by sea.  Two were shown, indicating that they were going by sea.  This was to warn people in those towns in the event that Paul Revere was caught.  He would have been arrested for breaking a curfew imposed by the soldiers in Boston at the time.  The next day the fighting broke out between the British and the colonists in Lexington.

After spending some time there, we went over to Haymarket for some pizza.  Michael showed us around the North End.  He is most familiar with that area, as he will be going to school there in a few weeks.  From there we went over to the Charlestown Navy Yard, on the other side of the Charles River.  There we went aboard the U.S.S. Constitution.  That ship is an old wooden Frigate, built in 1797.  It is the oldest ship afloat in the world, and it is the oldest commissioned naval vessel in the world.  She is known as, "Old Ironsides," because of her ability to stop cannon balls during the War of 1812.  Today she is the flagship of the American Naval Fleet, even at 213 years old!

On Saturday we decided to visit my Memere, in Sanford, ME.  Rather than drive, as we usually would, Tim rented a plane and we flew up there.  It is normally a drive of just under two hours.  It was a flight of thirty minutes.  Memere met us at the airport, and then we visited with her for a couple hours.  Mom decided last minute to come along and surprise her mother.  It had been a while since we all visited together, and it was quite nice.  When we left Sanford, we could have flown straight back to Nashua, but we decided to do a little flightseeing along the Maine coast.  There are lots of lighthouses we wanted to see, so we flew east from Sanford, and then followed the coast south for a ways.  Since we were over the Atlantic Ocean, we did not have to be very high.  We got up close to the lighthouses to get a good view.  This did get a little attention from people walking on the beaches.  I guess they were not used to having an airplane fly over just 500 feet above them!  It really was a beautiful trip back from Maine.  That evening we visited with some the Davises, some other friends in the area.

Yesterday afternoon, we boarded the Lake Shore Limited in Boston.  That train got us to Chicago five minutes ahead of schedule this morning.  In Chicago we went to the top of the former Sears Tower, now known as the Willis Tower.  We also got ourselves a Chicago style, deep dish pizza, much to the envy of some of the other passengers, and crew, on this train.  Now, as I write this, I am sitting on the California Zephyr, racing west across Iowa.  Tomorrow we will the end the trip, in Utah.